Recollections of my parents from a relative:

Yes, the falling out in the 80s. I remember when your dad and mom came up. I was fairly young. Oh, I thought they were the most glamorous and romantic people! Of course I knew Clay a little growing up (more on that later) but your mom. Wow. I thought she was the most gorgeous person! She had the most beautiful black/dark brown hair, and one time she got it highlighted with blue! I found that fabulous and shocking. And her accent – with a slight lisp, if I remember right. Even then I felt sorry for them, though, because Clay had never fit at the ranch and here he was with his new bride. They lived in a small rundown trailer. Did it hold chickens before or after they stayed in it? Anyway. The ranch is a hostile place – there’s no two ways about it. I think that’s why I’m a writer, trying to get over all that. I think maybe what precipitated it all was that Clay grew some pot (you have to know, marijuana on the ranch was close to a mortal sin). Maybe that was earlier. Anyway, it really was inevitable, but nothing that your parents did. The Tilletts always need an enemy, and I think Clay stood up for himself because he had a wife now and Lloyd’s part of the family (who have always modeled themselves on John Wayne) focused in on them. The final showdown – cousin Latahna came into their trailer and tried to beat them with a frying pan. She accused Clay of hiding behind Tracy and it was ugly all over. I don’t blame them in the least for leaving and never coming back!

Please say hi to your mom! I probably was quite a sight back then, and I’m sure I was quite needy. Please also thank her for her patience with me! —Tamara Linse

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If someone had asked me 10 years ago if I would plan to take self-portraits should I ever get pregnant the answer would have likely been a resounding yes. To document such drastic changes in this vessel I inhabit and be able to add that to my body of work, which was then and still occupied by so many beautiful and various female bodies I've photographed over the years? Well, of course. Ten years later when prompted with that question by several someones, my answer wasn't so certain, maybe even doubtful.

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I met Melissa, this red-lipped, beautifully inked, raven-haired woman less than 6 months ago. One day, nearly two months ago she confessed her love to me for Banksy’s balloon girl. She said she was dying to recreate it in a photograph for someone special to her, but wanted a snowy-filled backdrop. She wanted that vibrant red heart balloon to pop off a clean white setting.

My husband and I recently participated in an Atlas Obscura event to get a peek inside the Wonder View Tower in Genoa, Colorado. I'd actually never heard of this place before a friend sent me a link for the AO tour event only days prior to the meet-up. Needless to say, I was hooked and immediately bought tickets.

"Looking down these dreary passages, the dull repose and quiet that prevails, is awful. Occasionally, there is a drowsy sound from some lone weaver’s shuttle, or shoemaker’s last, but it is stifled by the thick walls and heavy dungeon-door, and only serves to make the general stillness more profound. Over the head and face of every prisoner who comes into this melancholy house, a black hood is drawn; and in this dark shroud, an emblem of the curtain dropped between him and the living world."

“Human lives are not pieces of string that can be separated out from a knot of others and laid out straight. Familes are webs. Impossible to touch one part of it without setting the rest vibrating. Impossible to understand one part without having a sense of the whole.” ―Diane Setterfield

The trip was of course, wonderful, until the last 30 minutes of the drive home when Serenica's engine began stalling on us whenever we'd drop beneath a certain speed (hoping it's a minor fix!). Fortunately, after stalling out on several occasions and getting it restarted again, she died right inside our RV storage lot gate and wouldn't turn over.